Monday, February 28, 2011

So, now I'm officially two months into the development of Project CAS and this blog. I'm not going to BS anyone, I slacked off this week for no reason, I really just didn't feel like doing anything. The only thing I did for CAS was write a few pages of the dialogue script for the GDD, and that's all. I promise, to myself, via this blog, that I will finish about 40% of the script by this Sunday. In addition to that, I actually have been in the mood to draw lately, so I'm more than likely going to pick up my pencil and draw a good bit of character, enemy, and location designs this week. Look forward to some art stuffs.In other news, Acrophilia has just begun work on our first serious video production. All I will say for now is that it is a video about recycling; based on what you know about Acrophilia from the last post I'll let you decide what that entails. We spent a good hour or two just deciding on the flow of the video and we plan to spend around, 2 weeks running through everything so it's perfect for filming. Usually we just film everything in one day, and we would have done that with this video, but it's kinda rainy and wet around, so we decided to just practice until the sun comes out and stays out :D. Additionally, Acrophilia is getting some love from the community lately as we tend to practice at a local and public library and art center and people have been seeing us do what we do. A few families and other traceurs from outside of town have actually stopped by to ask for pointers or give us pointers; it is a very exhilarating feeling knowing that people can learn from us even though we are so new.

Look for us at the Black Rock Community Art Center in Germantown, MD at various times throughout the week (usually Saturday and Sunday) and we occasionally take practices to the streets. I'll post it up here if we are ever hosting an event of some sort. :P

Regardless, it's about time I actually get to work on something with content so look forward to the first official Acrophilia video and possibly some CAS concept art work (and even some art work from another secret project I'm collaborating on). It turns out I'm a really busy guy >>'. Anyway, expect greatness. Ryan Huggins~

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Canabalt – Every once in awhile a game comes out that changes the entire landscape of indie game design and inspires a completely new style of play and possibly innovation; that day is not today, and this particular game has been out for more than a year. Canabalt is a game about one thing, survival. Story? What story? Art? Tiled in a way you don’t ever even notice? Music? You mean that one great song looped over and over? Gameplay? And that’s essentially where things get more complicated than they appear. </sarcasm>

You control a single character; he is unnamed and he has no established goal. Adam Atomic, the game’s designer (and essentially everything else sans music) gives you one button to play the game, and control is actually rather simple. You press a button (or touch your screen) to jump and avoid falling into endless abysses and/or running right into a wall and dying. A quick analysis of the actual gameplay shows that the game is really very simple; you jump at varying heights over and over and over until you ultimately fail…and you will fail, it’s inevitable, the game is rather hard. However, the game is so dreadfully simple that it draws you back in regardless of how many times you die. Overall, Canabalt is just a game made for people; people who aren’t looking for an extremely involved experience, yet one that is fun. That is what games are all about: fun and Canabalt nails it.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Today marks the 8th week of my game's development and the unofficial 2nd month of Project CAS. But let me cut straight to the chase; with the prototype of CAS almost 30% complete, I can honestly say that I'm working extremely slowly on this project due to the lack of a GDD (game design document) and so I've decided to put actual content development on hold for a short period (think about a month or less) while I completely write the document. A game design document is usually around 40 or so typed pages in length for one of my projects, so it does take quite a bit of work to write. I will be uploading the complete design document sometime after the full release of Project CAS (for proof of it existing). Currently, the document is about 8 written pages.

But just to keep you appeased with something, let me show you some extremely early progress on a level concept: the underground of a city I've designed.

In other, more content driven news, during this brief period of nothingness, I will be updating the blog on a possibly daily to bi-daily basis with short reviews of indie games, TV series, and even small articles about *entertainment design. I also hope to include a few extracts from progress on the design of Project CAS. Anyway, I say *entertainment design because I am getting very interested in film-making and the design of screenplays. In addition to working on Project CAS here at project-cas.blogspot.com I will also start informing you on the status of several small film projects my film/parkour group Acrophilia are working on.

Acrophilia is a group I unofficially started back in November with a few friends who, like myself, had an interest in free-running and parkour. Together, we started practicing every couple of days in a rather unorganized and disjointed way until starting this Wednesday, we start practicing officially under my own leadership. In addition to parkour, Acrophilia is a group of comedians and actors who make videos, currently for the morning announcements at my school, but soon on Youtube and other social film sites. Sometime during the week I will begin uploading our earlier projects to my CAS project Youtube account so that my viewers can watch them. Anyway, expect greatness. Ryan Huggins~

Monday, February 14, 2011

-Today's post will focus on the blog as opposed to the game itself-So, let's begin with me stating how little I got done this week (based on what I wanted to get done), at least on a visual scale. Busy, busy, busy is all I can really say; my other school related projects have been sucking up my time, and with the temperature finally starting to increase I'll be spending far more time outside for the Action part of my CAS requirements. That said, soon the official domain for CAS will be purchased and this blog will cease being an exclusively game centric blog (hopefully that will boost up viewer appeal). My goals for this blog are to associate it with a Youtube channel for my school and non-school related videos, my deviantArt for artsy stuff, indie/commercial game articles (both original and links from other prominent (and not so prominent) game design blogs, and of course, Project CAS itself. Moreover, some of my other projects aren't getting enough love...so this blog will be soon focusing slightly on them as well.

I'm dedicating this week, and more than likely next week to finishing what I started so far on CAS (what I posted about last week), but then I'm taking a minor break to focus on promoting the blog and getting a steady base of new viewers and subscribers. Look forward to a plethora of new kinds of content updates including reviews of existing games (indie and commercial), analysis on films and video game content, and even videos written, filmed, and edited by yours truly!

Regardless, on a Project CAS note, I have completed the story outline and I am currently writing the script. It should be done within the next two weeks or so. After that I plan to draw/develop the flow charts for the game's gameplay flow and story direction; only then can I finally actually work on the playable version of the game. ANYWAY, expect greatness. Ryan Huggins~

Monday, February 7, 2011

[EDIT] So, I was sick yesterday, hence the one day late update, but I'm good enough to write a blog post now! Anyway, today marks the official beginning of Month 2 of Project CAS' development. Honestly though, not an incredible amount of new artistic creations or content has been created, but what I have been doing, is working on the storyline and plot. I actually plan to finish the plot outline tonight after I record some vocals for a "music" video at school. Regardless, the update today will be rather brief.

The story to CAS so far is rather involved as far as the platform genre goes and I have introduced a new character, Cactier. Cactier is the main antagonist of the game's plot, though he remains rather obscure for a fairly long period of time. I don't want to reveal many details (he and Lily have a specific type of bond with each other), but I will have some concept art of him, as well as of Aster, up within the next week or two. It is even more likely however, that I will have a preview of a non-natural location finished and uploaded soon.

Much of this week has been dedicated to my illness (a week-long headache) and because of that I haven't been able to focus on Project CAS all that hard. The story IS coming along beautifully and it should be outlined completely by tomorrow night, if not tonight. When the outline is done, I plan to write a nice teaser synopsis and maybe even make a short story based trailer with custom music from Jack Yeates. My plans for this week include...

Finishing the story outline

Beginning the official typed GDD (soon to be on a wiki of some sort)

Buy/secure the official domain name for this blog/to be website

Complete one new location design (WIP)

Draw Cactier and Aster concepts

Code the basics of a combat engine and modify current movement engine to allow for more diverse collision checks

About Me

Ever wonder where the air you breathe comes from? Where the words that you think find meaning? Well, that's not me. I'm just a guy who makes video games with his friends. Currently as a student and hobbyist, but eventually, maybe as a professional.